Pandit Omkar Nath Thakur was a student of ____________.

Correct — B. Pandit Omkar Nath Thakur trained under Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar at the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, the music school Paluskar founded at Lahore in 1901.

Thakur went on to head that school's Lahore branch, and later built the music faculty at Banaras Hindu University as the first dean of its College of Music and Fine Arts.

He sang in the Gwalior gharana manner he had learned from Paluskar.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande — Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande was the other great reformer of Hindustani music, author of the ten-thaat classification, but his institutional work centred on Lucknow and he did not teach Thakur.
• (c)
  Pandit Gopal Shankar Mishra — Pandit Gopal Shankar Mishra has no place in the documented account of Thakur's training, which runs through Paluskar's Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. The name is supplied only for plausibility.
• (d)
  Ustad Abdul Karim Khan — Ustad Abdul Karim Khan is the central figure of the Kirana gharana and taught within that lineage. Thakur sang Gwalior, and his teacher was Paluskar.

Hindustani music was reorganised around 1900 by two men working in parallel, and exam questions turn on telling them apart.

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar did the institutional half. He took music out of private patronage into public schools: the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya taught by fee and curriculum rather than by household apprenticeship.

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande did the theoretical half: a written notation, and the sorting of ragas into ten thaats.

Which of the two a given musician studied under is the fact to memorise.

Key facts

• Vishnu Digambar Paluskar founded the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya at Lahore in 1901.
• Omkar Nath Thakur was Paluskar's pupil and later the first dean of the College of Music and Fine Arts at Banaras Hindu University.
• Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande produced a written notation and the ten-thaat classification of Hindustani ragas.
• Abdul Karim Khan is the central figure of the Kirana gharana.

Common traps

• Swapping the two Vishnus — Paluskar built the schools, Bhatkhande built the theory.
• Reading the question as who influenced him rather than who taught him.
• Assuming a north Indian vocalist must belong to the Kirana gharana because Abdul Karim Khan is on the list.

No directly related past PYQ was found.